I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wireless communication network planning tools. More particularly, the present invention relates to a novel and improved interactive graphic tool for planning a wireless network.
II. Description of the Related Art
Wireless network providers have an increasing need for wireless network design planning tools. A conventional wireless network planning tool is typically implemented in software designed to run on a computer system having a graphic display terminal. Generally, existing network planning tool software assists a network planner in designing a wireless network by graphically providing wireless communication transmission performance information. The wireless communication network most often designed using wireless network tools are cellular telephone networks.
Most network planning tools require the network planner to suggest a particular wireless network configuration and input that configuration into the network planning tool. In the case of a cellular wireless network the configuration is comprised of numerous "cell sites" or base stations having a specific geographic location in the communication service area. Proposing a configuration requires the planner to generate all base station Cartesian coordinate locations and input them input the network planning tool. Once a configuration has been proposed, a network simulation may be performed using the network planning tool. The results of that simulation are displayed providing the network planner with an indication of the performance of the proposed configuration.
Running a complete wireless network simulation using a conventional planning tool is time consuming and can therefore be ineffective because the network planner must wait a significant period of time to receive any feedback regarding the proposed configuration. Such "batch mode" processing, however, is necessary because of the complexity involved with performing a complete network simulation. Conventional computer are simply not powerful enough to perform such simulation in real time. The result is that each modification to a network design requires that the entire simulation be reexecuted. It would be beneficial to have at least some immediate communication of performance results as base station locations are selected, with the measurement of this performance being within the capabilities of conventional computer systems. Therefore, an interactive network planning system providing interactive tools that allows a network planner to receive rapid feedback regarding the configuration of various portions of a wireless network would be highly desirable.